The State of Employment

8.3% unemployment? Really?

Someone cooked the statistics....

The Government's Bureau of Labor Statistics January to January of the last five years tells a confusing story. Employment declined by 4,663,000 since 2008, yet we are told the unemployment rate is dropping. What's happening?



Abstracted from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at BLS.gov, Not-seasonally adjusted --
Only January is compared to itself in the five year period.

The second column is those actually employed, in thousands. You can see that during the first two years of the Obama administration, American employment dropped significantly, despite a net increase in available labor (column 3). The change in available labor is shown in column 5.

The increase in available labor in 2009 is due to mismanagement by the present administration -- large numbers of people were being dismissed. The people who were dismissed were unemployed for long enough they began to disappear from statistics of available labor. Those are the negative numbers in column 5 for 2010 and 2011. Keep in mind these are numbers for January.

The Republicans were able to block the current administration's "jobs programs" from being enacted in 2011, and the January 2012 statistic reflects this. Nearly a million people were encouraged to re-enter the workforce and try to get a job. The administration's idea of a "jobs program" is really government restriction on who can be employed. With that nonsense was removed, people started going back to work.

The total result is there is a real decrease in recent unemployment, but overall, there is still significant damage done to the working class by the current administration's mismanagement. 4,663,000 American workers have paid the price of Obama's ineptitude

Employment is up, sort of

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 243,000 jobs were added in January 2012. This is an impressive increase in the employment rate, especially considering an increase of only 135,000 was expected. Employment rates reports get revised; in the previous two months, they were revised upwards. Did something go right?

From BLS Household Data Table A-12. Unemployed persons by duration of unemployment


From the table, you can see the average length of time a person is unemployed is somewhat longer than a year ago, but better than last month. Under Obama, the employment situation has gotten worse, even though it got slightly better recently.

The BLS reported, "In January, 2.8 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, essentially unchanged from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, [but they] wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months."

Republicans Are Officially to Blame?

How official? Barack Obama insisted its all their fault today.

Since the "Democratic" Party took control of Congress (where the laws are made) in 2007, U.S. unemployment rates have increased dramatically. Here's an month by month overview


The chart shows the last ten years of data in summary. You can download the spreadsheet for yourself from the US Government Bureau of Labor Statistics. The link is rigged to download the latest spreadsheet, so the data will grow next month.

The chart shows the economy began to get worse within 12 months of the "Democratic" Party taking control. The immediate impact is the same magnitude as the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, which shows in the 2002-3 employment statistics.

The "Democratic" Party damage gets worse the longer it goes on. The clear cut cost of having the "Democratic" Party control Congress and the White House shows as an increase in unemployment of over 4%.

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Over seven million Americans have become unemployed since the 2006 elections. That is a lot of human misery. And today Barack Obama wailed that George Bush and the Republicans were to blame for the economic suffering that Mr Obama and the "Democratic" Party have caused. You could tell Mr Obama knew he was lying by the viciousness of his attacks.

That sort of lying isn't presidential, Mr Obama. That sort of sniveling isn't even manly.